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…
Is this a real child we look at, or a mirror of our own adult
regrets? This creature whose cheeks we pinch and hair we ruffle, does it
exist outside the mythology of innocence we’ve constructed?
Kevin Murray,
Three Child Proofs, essay
a few answers to the viewer...
...a photograph is, and yet it is not a novelty in the art
practices of dejan kaludjerović...
after the works in which he used it mainly as a pattern, a material
combined with other media (classical painting, for example), or an object
on which he intervened thanks to the "amenities" of computer
technology, now for the first time, he tested himself (as an artist, of
course) in its "creation"…if the first process amused him with
the role of the editor, the latter brought him even more excitement with
the opportunity to record and direct the situations…however it may be, in
both cases the effect is the same, because kaludjerović
sees the photograph, in fact its "nature", as an ideal
collocutor for the viewer, and the most appropriate transmitter for the
message/idea, but also as a big intriguer...
provocative shots...
...the sight of a girl, all made up and in a mini-skirt, with red boots,
striking a pose of a "tired from the life and glory" or
"overdosed" punk-rock star, is no more provocative, no more
shocking, no more disturbing then, for example, his pioneers, little marko - the racing car driver who leaves a bloody
trail, or the children modeling for the
underwear in the manner of experienced models... or, if we want to
broaden the story, it is no more perverted and dark then "cute"
posters of babies in leather jackets and with mohawk
hair-cuts, tv commercials in which
three-years-old kids imitate adult hugs and kisses, or the family photos
in which parents, looking for a confirmation of a biological connection
with their offspring, place cigarettes and bottles of hard liquor into
the child's hands... explicit exposure of genitals in some photos, to be
quite honest, does cause a reaction, but the sensation remains just for
the ones who in reading and understanding of this art work don't go
deeper then the surface, further then what can be seen with the naked
eye... every little scratch, every wish to see what lies beneath, is the
only way to get to what's essentially the most provocative, that is to
what the artist has to tell us or the idea he wants to transmit...
stealing innocence...
... one of the key moments for understanding kaludjerović's
cycle "the future belongs to us", which includes the new series
of photos called "electric girl", is the issue of children
engagement in the building of the society, and their unconsciousness of
the fact that for what ever reason (commercial, political,
ideological...), their naivety, innocence and charm can be used for those
purposes... christianity first offered the
image of an "innocent child" to whom the gates of every realm
are wide open, and whose chastity and kindness cannot be doubted...
educators enhanced this standpoint with a theory that a child keeps its
stage of purity until the moment the society meddles with its life, until
the modern science puts the effort to explain to us that what remained of
the child's innocence is just the myth, and that today it is quite clear
that genetics is very important in forming of a personality, and that a
child even in its early childhood, if it has the genetic predisposition
for being bad-tempered, for example, can be very far from "an
angel"... but, like every other myth, this one is still secretly
believed in, regardless of everything, and there is no human capable of
remaining indifferent to the images of cute little beings that represent
his most subtle and most distilled form, and who won't believe that such
a being can sell a product, attract someone's vote for some political
program, or make someone forget about his doubts that he might had in
some idea... economizing with children is as old as the world, and
although at some points in the past it had the form of physical cruelty,
today it gained a more perfidious feature, mainly owing to the mass communication
media...
poison container...
... everyone will agree (majority even from their own experience) that
the children culture is largely shaped by the rules and expectations of
the adults... there are people who believe that the children are active
participants in defining their own identity, but the prevailing opinion
is that in that stage they are mainly carriers of conflicting values,
goals and desires of their relatives and the society... psychologist lloyd demause, explaining
the main psychological mechanism functioning in every case of child (ab)use, symbolically describes the status of the
children as "poison container" - a place where parents and the
community dispose their "undigested" mental material... "be brave", "be careful", "be honest",
"try to manage by yourself", "this is for the boys",
"this is for the girls". "this is good", "this
is bad" throbs and twists in the minds of children, not leaving much
space for some other rhythm or image... the child lives in the world
which is in some way created for it by the people who in some way take
care of it... kaludjerović's heroine
carries a message of resistance to that world and to clichés of the
society, in which she is supposed to fit, although she is surrounded by
the decor and the attributes also invented and comprehended as symbols of
rebellion by the adults... presented even as a miniature version of the
ones who dictate the rules of the game, it seems that she shares their
destiny and is left with a possibility of only two choices: to resign
herself to the same destiny, forever trapped in the vicious circle of
cause and effect, or to be self-willed like a real child and with an
attitude: F*** OFF, THIS IS MY LIFE...
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